I worry the Middletons really do believe they are royalty

One of the traits that first attracted Prince William to Kate Middleton was she came from such a normal, middle-class background. Unlike him, she was the product of a loving, stable family — one he grew so fond of that he now calls Kate’s father, Michael, ‘Dad’.

William loved to spend time at the Middletons’ home in Bucklebury, and vowed that the whole family would always be at the heart of his and Kate’s lives.

Sadly, I fear, that middle-class idyll is becoming a little tarnished. For just over 14 months on from the royal wedding, the Middletons are starting to behave uncomfortably like royals themselves.

Why are they there? Pippa Middleton, the sister of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, sits next to her brother James in the Royal Box at Wimbledon

Why, for example, were Pippa and her brother James in the royal box at Wimbledon last week? Not because of their party-planning and cake-baking credentials, that’s for sure.

Pippa is now about to release her own party-planning guide, for which she’s said to have secured a £400,000 publishing deal. If it wasn’t for the royal connection, she’d be lucky to be writing recipes for the Bucklebury parish magazine.

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But, then, life for the Middletons has changed immeasurably since Waity Katy was rewarded for her patience.

Carole now wears a regal signet ring on the little finger of her left hand, bearing the new family crest. The modest country home is to be replaced by a £4.7 million pile in Berkshire.

Will we soon be expected to curtsey them? Carole and Michael Middleton appeared in the royal carriage procession at Ascot

A string of racehorses is being planned. And there have been the appearances of Carole and Michael in the royal carriage procession at Ascot, in the Jubilee flotilla, at the Order of the Garter ceremony and, this week, in the Wimbledon royal box as well. I wonder whether we’ll soon be expected to curtsey to them?

I do not begrudge the Middletons the trappings of their financial success. Turning a kitchen-table enterprise into a multi-million pound party business is an achievement we should celebrate, not sneer at. It must have hurt William deeply when his snooty friends made jokes about ‘doors to manual’ in a crude reference to Carole’s time as an air stewardess.

But now it’s the Middletons themselves who have an unsettling air of snootiness about their behaviour.

Both William and Kate have done a wonderful job representing the Royal Family since they married. But with every step forward the young couple make, the once down-to-earth Middletons seem to be trying a little too hard to hang on to the royal coat-tails, as they desperately try to turn themselves into the Uppertons — the opposite of everything that once made them such a breath of fresh air.

A little more reticence would go a very long way.

Having just spent time with my seriously ill father in hospital, I was struck by the tenderness of the nursing staff. They regularly called him ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling’, and as he struggled to get well, these endearments weren’t patronising, but kind and calming. Now the Care Quality Commission says such terms fail to respect the dignity of patients and should be banned.

What nonsense. At times of distress, a kind and affectionate word — even from a stranger — can be a wonderful tonic.

In a new fly-on-the-wall film about her life, Katy Perry says of her marriage to Russell Brand: ‘Being in love is the dream, and then the reality of making it work is not like the movies. There’s a lot more compromise, a lot of sacrifice.’

Self-obsessed: Katy Perry wouldn't know the meaning of compromise and sacrifice after her short-lived marriage to Russel Brand

Throughout their 14-month marriage, Katy and Russell spent most of the time on opposite sides of the world due to his and her working schedules. Compromise? Sacrifice? That self-obsessed pair wouldn’t know the meaning of the words. Little wonder it ended in tears.

Timid justice

Four male Muslim university students tormented a group of Jewish mothers and children, hurling abuse, calling ‘Oi Jew’ and pelting them with eggs. Found guilty of religiously aggravated behaviour, they were fined just £415 each.

If it had been Jewish young men insulting Muslims in such a manner, what’s the betting they’d all be in jail by now and rightly so?

Posing stark naked weeks before her Olympic bid for gold, cycling champion Victoria Pendleton defended the photoshoot. ‘When I compete, I am wearing a skintight suit, so really, what is the difference?’

Modesty, perhaps, and proof that real champions rely on skill, not naked ambition.

The Apprentice’s Karren Brady says she rejected pressure to slim down for her TV role and prefers instead to eat, drink, enjoy life and ‘dress herself thin’. With the right outfits, she claims she can shave off 10lb. And with a lot of thanks to Spanx, I’ll wager.

Hot on the heels — or should I say handcuffs — of the bondage book Fifty Shades Of Grey, Mills & Boon is launching its new series of erotica.

Oh, for the old Mills & Boon days when a tired husband could return home from work at the end of a hard day to be greeted with a warm smile and his slippers — and not be expected to use them for spanking his wife.

Licence to chill

Since Christine Bleakley took over presenting Dancing On Ice, viewers have melted away.

Gormless: Christine Bleakley has as much warmth as the ice rink. No wonder viewers have melted away from Dancing On Ice since she started presenting

Yet ITV bosses insist people will warm to her in time — for which read they have to recoup the ridiculous £4 million they paid to woo her from the BBC. One day they’ll realise gormless Bleakley has as much warmth as that ice rink.

No glamour on a tractor

Today’s prom princesses spend as long as four years planning their big night, choosing the frock, the tiara, the shoes, the transport — will it be a limo or a helicopter?

Now, in a desperate bid to outdo each other, two girls turned up to their prom in life-size Barbie boxes. Just one problem. The boxes were so big the girls had to be delivered on the back of an agricultural trailer, which spoiled the glamorous look they were going for.

Does this give a whole new meaning to the epithet ‘trailer trash’?

With more cuts to come, the NHS is now treating IVF as a low priority. Many doctors believe infertile women do not have a right to a baby, especially when treatments for life-threatening illness are being rationed.

I applaud the common sense that says the NHS will concentrate on curing the sick, not pandering to the unfortunate.

The number of teenagers taking Saturday jobs has halved since the mid-nineties, blamed on fewer vacancies and the pressures of school. Rubbish, the real reason is that so many teenagers today are spoilt rotten by their parents and are too lazy to get out of bed.

Incredulity met the news that the
Britain’s Got Talent winner, dog Pudsey, has a £350,000 book deal. But
why the surprise? Katie Price has pocketed £5 million for her
autobiographies and I bet Pudsey will have more creative input into his
book than the Page 3 bimbo did with hers.

Some surprise that Paul McCartney will
sing Hey Jude at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, rather than
one of his more upbeat hits. Sadly, judging by his Jubilee performance,
I suspect it’s the only song in his repertoire where he can still hit
the notes.

Friends of the BBC’s head of news Helen Boaden say that her gender played a role in her not getting the top job as director-general. She was less ruthlessly ambitious than male colleagues, they say, and that slowed down her career progression. So, just not up to the job then.

Fond words from Ken Dodd after the death of his friend Eric Sykes. ‘He found laughter in anything,’ Dodd recalled. ‘He loved everyone, everyone loved him. He was never cruel or nasty in his comedy.’ If only we could say the same about our current crop of so-called comedians.

Westminster noticeboard

Old Etonian Dave claims too many Olympians went to private schools. This from a PM who has done little to reverse the scandalous sell-off of comprehensive school playing fields. If he really believed in equality of opportunity, he could start by bringing some state school MPs into his Cabinet instead of stuffing it with his posh cronies.

If we needed evidence that an inquiry by MPs into the banking scandal would be an utter farce, Chancellor George Osborne and his shadow Ed Balls provided it. Opening the debate on the proposed inquiry, they behaved like a couple of schoolboy oiks slogging it out in the playground. And our ailing economy is in the hands of these children.

Education Secretary Michael Gove is
to hold an inquiry into the scandal of school meals. How many inquiries
do you need to prove that pizzas and chips are bad for them?

Nick Clegg jumps on the
banker-bashing bandwagon, declaring of Barclays boss Bob Diamond’s
resignation: ‘You don’t hang around like a bad smell when you’ve
outstayed your welcome.’ If that were true for politicians, the vapid
Clegg would have wafted off long ago.